Some prunes, after drying, are plumped back up with a bit of moisture before packaging (making them, in fact, semi-dried fruit.) Alternatively, some new processes are drying prunes down to only a semi-dried state (35% moisture.) This lets the prune retain a golden colour, (most prunes are blue-black) as the moisture didn’t go low enough for the sugar in it to caramelize. Up to four pounds (1.8 kg) of plums are needed to make 1 pound (450 g) of prunes. To become prunes, they are harvested, dipped in a lye solution to help preserve their sugar, and then dried for up to a day. The extra maturing period on the tree allows extra sugar to develop in the fruit. Plums that are destined to become prunes are left on the tree much longer than plums meant for eating fresh. Prunes give many dishes a really subtle, winey taste and are a natural in savoury dishes. If someone were to suggest to you a Moroccan dish that had dried apricots in it, you’d be all ears. Prunes are actually a great dried fruit for cooking with, just as other dried fruits are. Prunes ended up getting such a bad rap that the prune industry has given up on the name “Prune” altogether, is now starting to market prunes as dried plums or “plum raisins.” The California Prune Board has already changed its name to the California Dried Plum Board - hey, look what a name change did for Kiwi fruit (which used to be called a “Chinese Gooseberry”.)Īnd it’s really too bad. The Victorians loved prunes, and passed their love for prunes onto the next two or three generations, who successively thought of worse and worse ways to serve them, until now you have vast swathes of the population turning their noses up at the very thought of prunes, and only senior citizens have their Happy Shopper bags weighed down with canned sardines, cream corn and tinned stewed prunes.
We don’t have separate words for dried apricots or dried apples, do we? But never mind, dried plums get their own name - prunes. It’s difficult to know why we have a separate word for dried plums.
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